How Ferrari now ‘internally’ feel about signing Lewis Hamilton after his difficult start to the 2025 F1 season

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Ferrari would have felt at the start of last year that signing Lewis Hamilton was one of the most risk-free investments they’ve ever made in Formula 1.

In Ferrari’s 75-year F1 history, they’ve worked with countless world champions, and helped the likes of Michael Schumacher and Niki Lauda become icons of the sport.

No team has won more championships than Ferrari, but they’re currently on an 18-season drought without a title.

In that time, the likes of Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel have been brought in to try and end that wait with no luck, and Lewis Hamilton is the latest driver to try and complete that feat.

Ferrari fans turned up in their thousands to watch Hamilton’s first test, and after the way the team finished the 2024 campaign, they would have thought that the Brit would be in with a shout of becoming the sport’s first eight-time world champion this year.

Unfortunately, that’s not how the first five races of the 2025 F1 campaign have played out.

Hamilton’s victory in the Sprint Race in China has been the outlier for the 40-year-old.

Teammate Charles Leclerc is beginning to get to grips with the SF-25, while Hamilton is still struggling to extract the maximum potential out of the car.

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Lewis Hamilton performing ‘well below’ Ferrari’s internal expectations this season

Journalists Mark Hughes and Scott Mitchell-Malm were covering Hamilton’s start to the 2025 season on The Race F1 Podcast.

Reflecting on his tough beginning, Hughes said: “I’d say this is definitely the low point of his career. So it’s worse than the difficulties he faced in the last three years at Mercedes.

“And what’s more, it’s just not sustainable, especially for somebody of Lewis’ immense profile.

“There’ll be so much pressure from the Ferrari bosses. It was John Elkann who really pushed for this move to happen.

“So, it can be imagined the pressure inside at the moment on the team. There will be lots of pressure too from Formula 1 itself because a misfiring Hamilton completely spoils the immense story Formula 1 is ready to sell. So yeah, that’s where we are after five races.”

Mitchell-Malm continued: “It’s well below expectations, both internally and externally.

“I think the fact that there have been these kind of supposed micro breakthroughs and what have ultimately been false dawns have made it worse because there were and have been sort of moments through a Grand Prix weekend, not just sort of single stints in the race where it does look a little bit more encouraging.”

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Ferrari chiefs hoped Lewis Hamilton would be the team’s number one driver ahead of Charles Leclerc

It was always going to be tough for Hamilton to get up to speed at Ferrari given how long he spent racing for Mercedes.

There were plenty of drivers who changed teams during the winter break, but none had as much experience with one team than Hamilton and the Silver Arrows.

However, Hamilton wouldn’t have expected aspects like Ferrari’s brakes to catch him out, while switching away from Mercedes’ power units has also proved trickier than anticipated.

Before the start of the season, Ferrari chiefs wanted Hamilton to establish himself as their number one driver.

Leclerc was never going to make that easy, and he’s once again performing at a level that would make him a championship contender if he was in a more competitive car.

Unfortunately, Hamilton is in the fourth-fastest car and a step behind his teammate at this stage of the season.